{"id":177338,"date":"2025-11-12T22:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/177338\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T22:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T22:04:11","slug":"pr-campaign-to-relocate-melbourne-sculpture-to-mildura-profoundly-silly-says-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/177338\/","title":{"rendered":"PR campaign to relocate Melbourne sculpture to Mildura ‘profoundly silly’ says artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The artist whose controversial sculpture Vault headlines the regional Victorian town of Mildura’s new tourism campaign says it’s a “profoundly silly” PR stunt.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mildura Rural City Council unveiled a Bring Vault Home campaign<\/a>, which intends to take Ron Robertson-Swann’s yellow sculpture from outside the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Southbank and place it on the lawns of the Mildura Arts Centre.<\/p>\n

The controversial sculpture, nicknamed the “Yellow Peril”, was installed in Melbourne’s City Square in 1980 and moved to its current site in 2002.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Mildura council said Mr Robertson-Swann had “welcomed the proposal” but that seems not to be the case.<\/p>\n

\"ron<\/p>\n

Ron Robertson Swann, in an undated photo with Vault at its present site, \u00a0says the “silliness” of the campaign frustrates him.\u00a0 (Supplied: Australian Galleries)<\/p>\n

Speaking to the ABC, the artist said the campaign was “a silly beat up to get publicity”.<\/p>\n

“I thought it was silly but they went ahead with it,” Mr Robertson-Swann said.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t stop them from doing that. That’s their business.<\/p>\n

“They’re happy, I think, because this is all going on now and they feel they’ve really seriously generated something, but it’s hollow.<\/p>\n

“It’s completely hollow and it’s probably, if anything, exposing the stupidity.<\/p>\n

“The silliness of it frustrates me.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The sculpture Vault by artist Ron Robertson-Swann in Melbourne. (774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown)<\/p>\n

AI used in campaign video<\/p>\n

The Bring Vault Home campaign is the beginning of a wider tourism promotion portraying Mildura as regional Victoria’s new arts and culture capital.<\/p>\n

It included a video fronted by actor and Mildura’s tourism ambassador, Shane Jacobson.<\/p>\n

The video, which the council confirmed used AI, shows a crowd gathered in front of the sculpture
wanting to bring it “home”.<\/p>\n

\"AI<\/p>\n

Mildura’s “Bring Vault Home” campaign shows distortions that are a hallmark of some AI-generated videos. (Supplied: Facebook\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“The Vault has been underappreciated, undervalued, unloved, it’s even been mocked in Melbourne for way too long \u2014 we are talking decades,” Jacobson says in the video.<\/p>\n

\"green<\/p>\n

Beethoven is displayed in front of the Mildura Arts Centre. (ABC News: Nethma Dandeniya)<\/p>\n

Cost to relocate Vault<\/p>\n

Mr Robertson-Swann said the City of Melbourne owned Vault and it would cost well over $1 million to move it to Mildura.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s profoundly silly, because … Mildura has no intention of spending any money,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The only money they spent was on phone calls to start this beat up.<\/p>\n

“If Mildura council was at all serious, they should start purchasing a few more sculptures for … the gallery.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In response, Mildura Rural City Council said Mr Robertson-Swann had “indicated he was supportive of the initiative” when consulted.<\/p>\n

“We have enormous respect for Ron Robertson-Swann’s artwork, which is why we are asking for Vault to join its little brother, [the sculpture] Beethoven, and we’d certainly like to see more sculptures in Mildura and the broader region,” said the council’s strategy and growth general manager Phil Stone.<\/p>\n

“We have invited Ron and his wife to visit Mildura and we’re looking forward to hosting them when they arrive.”<\/p>\n

Councillor dissent<\/p>\n

City of Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece has rejected Mildura’s Vault heist attempt, saying the “Yellow Peril” belongs in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

However, fellow councillor and portfolio lead for creative and arts Philip Lui disagreed.<\/p>\n

“If there is a serious proposal, if there is a serious interest, I don’t think we should be just putting up a straight: ‘No,'” Cr Lui said.<\/p>\n

“I want to hear what the reason is, what’s the proposal, how they’re going to look after it, what’s the interest?<\/p>\n

“Because ultimately public art is for the public, if there is interest in it, and given that we are the leaders in the local government sector we do, I think, have to show leadership.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The artist whose controversial sculpture Vault headlines the regional Victorian town of Mildura’s new tourism campaign says it’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[365,362,363,364,100620,100618,366,18,117,19,17,10486,100619,11480,98154,98152,98153],"class_list":{"0":"post-177338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-australian-centre-for-contemporary-art","13":"tag-city-of-melbourne","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-melbourne","20":"tag-mildura","21":"tag-public-art","22":"tag-ron-robertson-swann","23":"tag-vault","24":"tag-yellow-peril"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115538995776241828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}